Holiday Food Goodness: drinks, cookies, general yum

Ok, I did a fair amount of cooking/baking around the holidays. Not quite as much as last year, since being in Kansas for over a week took out a chunk of December. But I still got some done!

I did three kinds of cookies this year:

1. Peppermint chocolate cookies (aka Thin Mints!) I did these last year and they were delish. I never took any pics of the final product! But I did last year, so check it.

2. Pecan Pie Bars (recipe HERE): Caleb and I both thought these were ok, but they were the favorite of all his coworkers.

3. Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles (recipe HERE): These were our favorite by far. We kept most of them for ourselves.

I also made these yummy little turtles the other day. I went ahead and finished them off today because they were haunting me and my weight loss. So eating them was the only rational thing to do. They are so darn good! And super easy.

I learned to make these from a kid I babysat. Here's what you need:
1. A bag of rolo candy
2. A bag of mini pretzels
3. Pecan halves (I got the small bag from the baking section)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Throw the pecans on a cookie sheet and roast for about 6-7 minutes. While they are roasting, lay out the pretzels on a different cookie sheet. Place an unwrapped rolo candy on each pretzel. Bake in the oven for about 4 minutes or until just melted. Immediately squish a pecan half into each rolo/pretzel combo. Let cool. (If you can!) Give them away so you don't eat them all yourself.

Next up, Cranberry Sangria. We had this on Christmas Eve. Really light and refreshing with all the heavy food.

What you need:
1 bottle white wine (I used a really cheap Chablis Blanc)
25 oz sparkling cranberry juice (I used 3 8 oz cans since my Target didn't have any bottles)
1 apple, chopped or sliced
1/2 cup fresh cranberries
1 sprig rosemary

Mix it all up, let it sit for a hour or so in the fridge, enjoy! Pretty sure this would be good with just the wine and cranberry juice.

(Recipe from HERE This blog has much prettier pictures!)

I also made the Pioneer Woman's Cornbread dressing with sausage and apples for Christmas Eve. It was yummy but time consuming.

And I made Simply Recipes' Cranberry glazed turkey meatballs for our work potluck on Christmas Day. Pretty delicious as well, but I would recommend serving immediately as opposed to reheating the next day.

In the spirit of food and Sandra Lee, here is my Christmas tablescape:

Yes, my wedding photo is in it. It just seemed to look good, ok? I am kind of in love with the plaid tablecloth I got at Target. I saw them on sale for 50% off today, so you should go pick one up!

I love holiday food. Which is why the personal trainer killed me with a walking lunge/arm curl combo today. Thanks, Chris.

State of the House: Project Kitchen

I just had a seriously beautiful weekend. Five wonderful days off in a row. What kind of crazy job do I have that gives me that many days off in a row? Oh, that's right, one where I wipe up poop and push drugs. Regardless, it has been pretty awesome. I spent a lot of time sleeping and cleaning and hanging out with my hub. We went to see "Arthur" on Saturday night and it was super cute. Funny and sweet. Also I just like Russell Brand. And dates with my husband. But I have no picture documentation of it. Because of this annoying thing with my camera. Here is the story. Last week, I got my camera out and noticed all these dust specks when I looked through the viewfinder. Super annoying. I took everything apart and noted that the filters were super dusty. I tried to clean them, it didn't work. I went and bought new filters, thinking the problem was fixed. I took the camera out again, noting that some of the dust specks were still there. I knew that it wasn't on the lens or the filters or anything. So I the lens off and saw the dust specks in the camera! Booo. I took it to the camera store and demanded they get the dust out. The camera store man said that you shouldn't touch anything in there and asked me if the dust was affecting my pictures. I said maybe. (Ok so I didn't really know because I stopped taking pictures after I noticed the dust.) He took some pictures and said that the pictures were fine and explained this whole mechanism to me about the reflection and the dust not affecting the pictures, ect ect. I asked him to please get that dust out, that I can't take pictures when I have to look at dust. He said no. He told me that I was under no circumstance to try and clean anything on the inside of the camera, that they normally get dust in them from being outside and switching lenses and stuff. He said maybe I should concentrate on what I'm taking pictures of instead of the dust.

So I tried to take a bunch of pics today to try and prove to myself that the pictures are find. And they really are.

It really is spring! You can see green things!

Things from my kitchen this morning:
1. A flower from a patient who claimed she was a pain in the butt. She was.
2. What my hub wrote on the white board this am. We love you Rebecca Black. And your horrible, horrible song.
3. My breakfast. Egg, bacon, spinach, on toast. Yum.

Happy Monday!

Anyway, moving on. I did some serious spring cleaning in an effort to revive my State of the House resolution. The kitchen got some major cleaning and serious reorganization. I really hate when the kitchen is messy/dirty and part of my project is making sure it stays this way. I took all my large platters that were taking up space and put them above the shelves. I took all the small appliances that were clutter the counters and put them on the top shelf of the pantry behind the cereal, which was now clear from the large platters. Win win. Win.

I even reorganized the pantry.

Unfortunately I have no before pictures. Because I was annoyed with the dusty camera. But trust me, it was pretty out of control. It is April and most of my house is reorganized and clutter free. Now is the really hard part, keeping it clean.  My April State of the House goals include the only frontier in the apartment not yet conquered: the bathrooms. And general maintenance of the rest of the house. I'm going to come up with some kind of plan for that...I'll get back with you.

I spend the afternoon walking around in the sun with my hilarious friend, Stephanie. The Kiewit girls have to stick together! I have a sunburn to show for it and I love it. I missed you, Sun.

I hope you are having a beautiful Monday and a start to a wonderful week! Any tips for getting the dust out of my camera without touching it or blowing on it (which the camera guy also said was prohibited) would be much appreciated...